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Creature with the Atom Brain
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Directed by Edward L. Cahn.
A gangster is killed by a big man who pays no attention to bullets, and who leaves glowing fingerprints. Police scientist Chet Walker (Richard Denning) discovers that the fingerprints are radioactive -- as well as those of a dead man. We soon learn that this walking corpse was created by Dr. Wilhelm Steigg (Gregory Gaye); he's allowing secretly-returned deported gangster Buchanan (Michael Granger) to get revenge on those who were responsible for his conviction. Steigg removes part of the brains of recently-dead men, and replaces them with a device that allows them to control the body from a distance, like a robot; they can even see through the creature's eyes via television. Another atomic zombie kills the district attorney who convicted Buchanan, which leads Chet and his homicide detective friend Dave Harris (S. John Launer) to deduce that the killings are connected to the Buchanan case. Warnings are issued to other possible targets, but they're unable to prevent another death. The last two go into hiding. The movie concludes with a headline: "Creatures with the Atomic Brains Destroyed." This entertaining but cheesy little movie is completely unpretentious. Broad, surprisingly gruesome and well-paced, it's obviously aimed straight at the juvenile market -- and it hits it, too. A sterling artifact of its time: brisk, efficient and entertaining, even if it is awfully silly. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide
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Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
disliked it.
Creature With the Atom Brain was an unexpectedly graphic and grisly horror movie to come out of Columbia Pictures in 1955. By that time, in the wake of increasing concerns about violence in entertainment -- especially entertainment aimed at younger audiences -- most horror movies were starting to tone down their physical violence. But in this horror opus from producer Sam Katzman and director Edward L. Cahn, there are scenes of throats being crushed and backs being broken, and other forms of brutal mayhem that are heard -- if not always seen -- in detail. It was enough to scare a lot of kids at the time, and in years since on television, which may be one reason why this movie has lingered in the memory of a lot of baby-boomer viewers. The rest of the film is fairly routine, distinguished mostly by pacing resembling that of a movie serial (of which Katzman had produced his share and then some) -- or, more properly, a movie serial edited down into a feature. There are some moments of unexpected humor amid the sometimes graphic killings, as when the mayor laments the fact that the title creatures (of which there is more than one) have appeared "during my administration." But it's difficult for those light moments to get past the savagery of the killings depicted, or the murder of an extremely likable key character midway through the movie (especially when that character -- played by S. John Launer -- turns up in much of the rest of the picture as a re-animated corpse). The film is too much of a hybrid -- part action-adventure, part horror picture, part chapterplay -- ever to be regarded as a classic, but it is great (if unsettling) fun. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
 



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